Thursday, February 12, 2015

How '50 Shades of Grey' Harms Women

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP) -- We commonly hear today from a secular
culture and from many voices of progressive Christianity (so-called)
that the Bible is oppressive to women. Men are called to be heads of
their home, goes the line, and women are called to submit, and that
makes the Bible hugely problematic.

Let me make four points
to guide a possible response to this common objection and to "50 Shades
of Grey" in particular, which opens in theaters Friday.

1)
This is a sham accusation, of course. Men are called to be heads, but
in the image of Christ. They're called to lay their lives down for their
wives (see Ephesians 5:22-33). The Bible never enfranchises men treating women anything less than purely and lovingly (1 Peter 3:7).
The man a godly woman submits to is not some goofball with a title he
didn't earn. To the fullest possible extent, with every fiber of his
being, he's supposed to love his wife like Jesus loves His bride.
Nothing less than perfection is the standard for masculine conduct and
manly headship. High stakes, these.

Not so with secular
culture. There is no extant moral code for men and women. Christianity
is outmoded, bygone and repressive. In its place, the postmodern West
has adopted, well, not much of any ethical standard, really. Into the
vacuum come cultural fodder like 50 Shades of Grey, based on the
best-selling book. In this film and book, a playboy named Christian Grey
enters into a relationship with Anastasia Steele. Grey sexually uses
and abuses Anastasia, who finds herself drawn to the man despite his
roughness.

In the Bible, an abusive male sexual predator is
an abomination. In secular culture, an abusive male sexual predator is a
celebrity. The difference could not be more stark.

2.
Christianity disciplines abusive men. A man who sexually uses and abuses
women will be excommunicated from the church, reported to the police,
and opposed with the full force of biblical righteousness. Not so with
the culture that promotes 50 Shades of Grey. A man who sexually uses and
abuses women is cool, mysterious and compelling.

Let me
speak as strongly as I should here: 50 Shades of Grey is disgusting,
despicable and unerringly awful for women. Don't view this film as just a
film. Know that it is much more. It is representative of the new sexual
progressivism and its amoral worldview. 50 Shades of Grey speaks to
where things are headed in our culture. We should not expect that
postmodernism will protect women. It will do no such thing. We should
not expect that it will ennoble men and call them to self-sacrificial
responsibility. It will do no such thing. We should not expect that
postmodernism will bless children and strengthen the family. It will do
no such thing.

Those who work against biblical manhood and
womanhood, who fight the Scripture's teaching as marginalizing are in
fact undermining the last cultural defense that still stands against
male predation and sexual suffering.

3. 50 Shades of Grey
may seem exciting, enticing and alluring. It is in truth nihilistic,
degrading and devastating. Any woman who has been sexually abused will
be very clear that there is nothing romantic, fun and satisfying in the
experience. It's unthinkable -- but true -- that this is the vision of
the good life being offered to and received by many, many women today.
Abuse of women is evil to the very core of what evil represents. Yet our
double-minded culture decries "rape culture" and then -- in a spasm of
confusion -- turns around and extols what it just condemned.

Think
about how confusing sexual mores are today for young men and women.
There is effectively no standard of sexual conduct on many secular
college campuses, for example, outside of mutual consent. But media like
50 Shades of Grey entice young men to sexually abuse women while
exhorting young women to engage in harmful sexual practices. Honestly,
what kind of twisted, deviant culture is this?

The church
must be clear against the backdrop of such confusion. No system of
thought more dignifies women than biblical Christianity. Our culture and
our world desperately need it. But in a world turned upside down by the
fall, many people -- including professing Christians -- make gospel
faith out to be the problem. They try to present biblical
complementarianism as evil. This is a lie. We must not believe it.

There
is evil in every human heart; no church is perfect. Abuse can and does
happen even in Christian homes and churches, but we must remember that
when it does, no gospel-loving church celebrates it. No movie is made to
sell it. Such sin is condemned and opposed and reported to authorities
and then dealt with in the household of God. No, it is not the Scripture
that harms women and subjugates them. It is a sexualized culture that
has loosed men from their role as Christ-like heads and encouraged them
to gratify their lusts with women without recourse.

4.
There is one, and exactly one, source of ultimate hope for man-woman
relationships today. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ. This gospel, the
message of Christ crucified and raised for sinners like us, takes
predatory men and fallen women and turns them into trophies of grace.
This is not a limited redemption. The worst of the worst can be saved.
The abusive, the predatory, the abused, the hopeless -- all alike find
everlasting salvation in the cross of Jesus as they turn from this world
and run into the strong and safe arms of Christ.

Remember
these words when 50 Shades of Grey is lauded in coming days. You're not
witnessing something beautiful and hopeful. You're seeing something
diabolical and twisted, a force so strong that only one man can undo it:
Jesus Christ, the self-sacrificing Savior of His wandering, unfaithful
bride, the church.